


Something

by wylanvanecks



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Amnesia, M/M, Memory Loss, bucky lost his memory, remembering, starts to regain tiny bits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-09-05 05:17:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16804366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wylanvanecks/pseuds/wylanvanecks
Summary: Living with Bucky is some odd form of torture for Steve. Seeing the man you love look at you and see nothing but another vaguely familiar face was nearly as heart-breaking as losing him had been the first time.





	Something

**Author's Note:**

> prompt fill for the happy steve bingo 
> 
> prompt: amnesia

It had been nearly two months since Bucky lost his memory. 

No one was entirely sure how it had happened, but they knew when it happened. Steve, Bucky, and a few others had been taking down a few aliens who had decided it’d be a good idea to try and invade New York, despite the various past events that prove otherwise. They hadn’t known the extent of their tech until Bucky was blasted full-force in the chest with a burst of light that emerged from a bizarre gun held by one of the aliens. Steve hadn’t hesitated. He finished off the alien he had been fighting before going to Bucky. He was unconscious, and Steve felt the familiar stirrings of worry in his chest as he looked down at his limp form. 

Bucky spent nearly a week unconscious in the hospital room of the Avengers’ compound. As a result, Steve spent nearly a week in the chair beside his bed, only leaving to use the bathroom or, the first night they were there, change out of his uniform and into the sweats and tee shirt Sam had brought him. He slept, ate, and worried at Bucky’s bedside, day and night. Normally he wouldn’t be freaking out too much, besides the usual worry. The fact that nobody seemed to know what was wrong, though, had him nearly out of his head with concern. Besides being comatose, Bucky was healthy as a horse, with no trace of whatever it was the alien shot him with. 

When Bucky finally woke up, there were a few blissful seconds of relief. Steve figured that the blast merely rendered him unconscious, and now that he was awake, things would be fine. Bucky would be fine. These moments didn’t last long, of course. “Bucky? Oh, thank God,” Steve muttered, reaching out to take his hand. Bucky pulled his hand away as if Steve’s touch burned. 

“Who’re you?” he slurred, blinking sleepily. Steve’s heart skipped a beat. 

“Wha-Bucky, it’s me. Steve.” 

“Bucky? I’m...Bucky?” He sounded lost, and Steve couldn’t help but think back to that moment on the bridge, all those months ago. Who the hell is Bucky? 

Bruce was in the room by the time Steve finished that thought, seeing as he had been notified the moment Bucky woke up. After talking with Bucky for a couple minutes, Bruce asked Steve to leave the room and allow them to talk privately. Steve paced anxiously in the hall, his eyes flickering from the door to the ground in front of him and back again every few seconds. Eventually he settled for leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest as he waited. 

He straightened up as Bruce stepped out into the hall. “What’s wrong with him?” he asked immediately. 

“He seems to have some pretty severe amnesia. I mean, I’m not this kind of doctor but...He knows basics. How to walk, talk, all of that. But every personal memory, everything that made him who he was...That’s gone now.” Steve looked away. He couldn’t stand the pitying expression on Bruce’s face. 

In some ways, this was a blessing. Bucky wouldn’t remember all the shit he went through with Hydra and being the Winter Soldier. He wouldn’t wake up screaming and drenched in cold sweat, wouldn’t freeze up at loud noises or people brushing against his left arm, wouldn’t look at Steve with blank eyes because his mind was too lost in memories to see what was really in front of him. On the other hand, Bucky wouldn’t remember the good things, either. He wouldn’t remember the late movie nights with Steve when sleep was too slippery and elusive for either of them to catch, wouldn’t remember going to Coney Island with his sister when they were young way back before the war, wouldn’t remember that one day in the park when a little girl with a prosthetic arm came up to him and told him that he was her hero and she wanted to fight bad guys just like him when she grew up. 

“Nothing? How can he just...not remember any of it?” Steve asked, voice quiet and tone incredulous. 

“Whatever those aliens shot him with…” He trailed off and shrugged. Steve sighed. 

“What do we do? What do I do?” Steve hated nothing more than feeling helpless. 

“The best thing would just be to take him home, probably. Surround him with familiar things, see if we can get anything to jog his memory. Until there’s any change, I can just keep checking in.” Steve nodded, and the plan was set. 

For two long months, Bucky and Steve lived side by side, but not...together. It was awkward, more so for Bucky than himself, Steve imagined. At first, there would be moments that he would forget, and he’d joke around or behave with Bucky the way he had before. Now, though, he’d become almost used to the distance. They learned to deal with each other, but they weren’t quite friends. 

Early one Saturday morning, he rolled out of bed feeling as if he hadn’t slept a wink and walked to the kitchen, immediately getting the coffee maker started. He leaned against the counter, closing his eyes and tilting his head back until it rested against the cabinets. He was exhausted, and not just physically. He had basically lost Bucky yet again, even though he was right there. That was almost worse than him being gone completely. 

“Steve?” 

Steve opened his eyes and straightened up as Bucky stepped into the kitchen. “Hey, Buck.” 

“I remember…” Despite his best efforts to tamp it down, Steve feels his heart leap with hope. “I think I remember something.”

“Really? What do you remember?” 

“Us, I think. Um, something we did together.” Steve nodded, silently encouraging him to continue. “We went to Coney Island. A couple weeks before my...accident, I guess?” 

Right, Coney Island. They made trips there semi-often. It had changed since the forties, obviously, but something about being there with Bucky still felt the same. Maybe he just liked the nostalgia of it all, but Bucky never complained. The particular trip in question was on a day that started out sunny and warm and ended in torrents of rain and the two of them huddling under the awning of a small shop. 

“We played a couple games, until you got it into your head that you were gonna win me a stuffed animal.” Steve laughed softly at the memory, his cheeks pinking. It was weird talking through all this, almost as if Bucky hadn’t quite lived through it as well, even though he did. Steve was willing to sit here and let him piece anything he needed to back together, though, minute by minute if need be. “Then you won this, right?” He held up the small stuffed bear that had rested on the nightstand on Bucky’s side of the bed. Bucky hadn’t taken it when he decided to move into the guest room. 

“Yeah. I won it for you, and you said, ‘Could you try any harder to be a cliche, Rogers?’,” Steve said with a soft laugh. Bucky grinned, his face almost as bright as it had been that day. 

“Yeah, and then...We were gonna check out a ride, but it started to rain.” Steve nodded. “We went…” He seemed to struggle, and it was clear on his face how hard he was trying to remember. 

“To Nathan’s Famous.” Bucky nodded, recognition taking over his face. 

“We got hot dogs and waited out the storm under their little awning. Eventually, though, it was clear the rain wouldn’t stop.” He huffed a laugh. “We made a run for it back to the car and came home. You made hot chocolate, ‘cause you’d look for any excuse to drink that stuff, even at the start of summer.” he finished. Steve couldn’t help the smile that appeared on his face. “So yeah, I remember.” He played with the bear’s ear. “It’s not much, I know, but-” 

“It’s something.” Bucky looked up and mirrored his smile. 

“It’s something.”


End file.
